civil war in syria enters its twenty second month the us now says it will intervene if a sign uses chemical weapons but does this remind you of iraq circa two thousand and three we'll take a look at the similarities in these cases and ask if intervention is inevitable susan rice is still being dragged through the man for his her inaccurate statements on the benghazi attack all of this in the quest for the next secretary of state but given her history and more importantly her investments there's more to susan rice than the cia i had our t.v. sets the u.n. ambassador in the ways the mainstream media isn't. backed by congressional demand but against white house objections stricter sanctions on iran as part of the

revamped and v.a. bill coming up a look at what these new measures and tale and whether they really are nonviolent. it's monday december third five pm in washington d.c. i'm christine for and you're watching r t starting off this hour with the latest news out of syria there are reports that syrian president bashar al assad may be preparing to use chemical weapons in his war torn country both the united states and its western allies have warned the syrian government that assad will quote be held accountable if his forces use those weapons against the rebels fighting his government this is also the story being told to the american people that syria's stockpile of chemical weapons is dangerous and could be deadly does this sound familiar well if so it could be because you heard very similar talk a decade ago in the lead up to war with iraq.

the danger to our country is growing. iraqi regime possesses biological. and chemical weapons weapons of mass destruction weapons of mass destruction weapons of mass destruction every statement i make today is backed up by sources solid sources these are not assertions we're giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence a lot of questioning on solid intelligence is regarded today as one of the biggest media fails in history and yet there is a possibility we are seeing something very similar with syria that this alleged movement of chemical weapons could mean the west can and should get involved this was made abundantly clear today is the latest news came out regarding the turmoil in the region if piers the syrian government is preparing its biological and chemical weapons they will recall it and gave syria a warning this morning about the use of chemical weapons the possible use of

chemical weapons by the syrian regime the syrian government is losing its grip on damascus and that may be part of the reason why they are preparing their chemical weapons the data shows. parents leave huge weapons. so does increased attention to syria's chemical weapons mean that the west is readying itself for an invasion and building an arsenal of justification well we can't say for sure one thing however is clear if history serves as an indicator we might be sings a military action sooner rather than later. how much of the mainstream media cycles last week were mired in chatter about you want to bounce it or susan rice and the possibility she might be considered to take over as secretary of state once hillary clinton leaves her post and most of you what you probably heard sounded something like this. we are significantly troubled by many of the answers that we

got and some that we didn't get bottom line and more disturbed now than i was before we will not allow a brilliant public servant record to be mug to cover all of her her consideration to become secretary of state the republicans are making a big mistake the first thing they do after the election is start attacking an african-american woman without any cause by the way this is somebody had nothing to do with big guys he she was given cia information the cia told her here's what i think it's appropriate to say of course it's only racism when it's directed toward a a liberal or a democrat it's never racism toward a republican look if this is called the lisa rice and not susan rice allen would be on the other side of this camera basically suggesting that she deserves either resign or she did something wrong while as you can imagine the obama administration was a little annoyed about so much attention being paid to ambassador rice i was there last tuesday's press briefing at the white house and question after question was about susan rice and who knew what when about those been gazi attacks while here

was just one of white house spokesman jay carney's responses to the barrage of questions he got. going to sit with this is again what is the point of the focus on this you could have been me it could have been. better right when i took questions on this too and we all rely on. information from the intelligence community the focus on a sunday show appearance is entirely misplaced and it represents less interest i think in what happened in benghazi then in political dynamics in washington and you know what his right wing media is focused on the wrong thing and they want to focus on susan rice that's fine but this overkill of her allegedly misleading the american people based on vague information she may have gotten it might not be the most significant thing here if they want to focus on the potential of her becoming secretary of state and the issues stemming from that well let's take a look at your assertion rice's and what she represents here's some food for thought susan rice is worth between twenty three and forty three million dollars

making her the wealthiest member of the executive branch according to the center for responsive politics she has investments in companies like trans canada corp suncor and imperial oil ltd and that's actually just the beginning everything you see highlighted in yellow there is something that susan rice has a stake in so when you look closely the millions of dollars of assets in these canadian utility companies and banks that makes up a third of her total investments now if confirmed by the senate as secretary of state one of the first items on rice's agenda would be to weigh in on and eventually make a decision about the keystone pipeline this is just the beginning of some major concerns about rice but for more on that i was joined earlier by michael brooks producer at the majority report and i started off by asking him whether or not susan rice should be considered a good candidate for secretary of state based on her so-called misspeak about benghazi or her financial holdings and relevant actions. well definitely her

financial holdings in trance canada and you know unfortunately this is part of a pattern with the state department and this issue in general you know you had lobbyists who were senior officials on hillary clinton's campaign lobbying her on the pipeline fortunately you know the pipeline was delayed by the administration i think due to the effort of activists on the ground. you know and i think if we look at climate change as the security issue it really is you could in some ways see you know races holdings in these companies as analogous to the surgeon general or you know having holdings and tobacco companies it doesn't make a lot of sense it's something she should address and it's not just on these investments i know back in one thousand nine hundred four season rice was working for the clinton administration as a junior official often national security council and how to shape the u.s. policy toward central africa during and after the wanding genocide as you want to

invade neighboring countries to find her to talk a little bit about some of the criticisms of susan rice you know in that. well i think that in bassa the race in this regard is really just reflective of a lot of even president clinton himself and a lot of figures from that administration because basically they were responsive to genocide that you know took place in real time it was clear what was happening and due to other concerns about not wanting to get bogged down in africa due to the marines being killed in mogadishu the year before in one thousand nine hundred three and they didn't want to intervene and this really horrific event happened and now the tendency coming out of that has been on the opposite extreme which has been to look the other way as the rwandan government under paul kagame a has a questionable domestic record of those some real significant domestic. successes

but also really plays kind of warlord and rebel pop politics across central africa so i think you know the baster rice is she kind of just embodies a lot of these tendencies of the clinton administration officials who were involved in both sides of both letting what happened in rwanda happen and then probably going too far in the other extreme of being too forgiving of of the rwandan government it's so interesting to me because the position of secretary of state is so important in terms of representing this country on an international scale so why are we not hearing in the mainstream media i'm bound to decisions like this decisions and policy shaping ideas about africa this is not what we're hearing. well because you know these are more complex topics they're a little bit they're not in the news cycle although obviously there's a lot happening in congo right now that's relevant to this discussion like you

point out but benghazi is saturday or sunday morning you know argument topic right now and it's partisan and it's easy to sound bites and people are scoring points and it's easy to cover and easy to have people to come on and or you with each other about it's not to say that what happened in benghazi isn't really important and worthy of of talking about but her role in it was very limited you know she read some talking points that were prepared for her and as you say it's really not in any way central to evaluating her record i think it's interesting what you said michel that it's a little more complicated to talk about the issues in africa to talk about. you know what i think that investments and holdings in these major companies that you're going to have a role in making decisions on i mean this is you know standard washington you know sports politics why not why are people are talking about that well because again from a. artists and lens you know be interesting to watch republicans come out and say

you know we need to approve this pipeline immediately but it's a major problem that she might potentially have a conflict of interest here so a lot of these things you know are driven just in the sort of partisan framework. you know real issues are kind of obscured by it so i don't think that there's a political incentive for a lot of people to bring up her holdings because democrats are going to want to be defending her and republicans are really strongly strongly supportive of the pipeline and i think that's such an interesting point that because her you know conflict of interest has to do with an issue that you know republicans would actually side with her on something they would agree on they're deciding not to bring it up but what do you think i mean where when weighing a potential secretary of state i mean what qualities should be looked at and how much you know significant should they this be given i know that you know in the presidential election we were in the conversation. every single hour of every single day it was about mitt romney's taxes

a lot of people were saying you know what i don't care how much money he makes and that's irrelevant what do you think are the you know most important points that the american people should be thinking about and that the american media should be talking about when it comes to whoever the next secretary of state is well i mean there's definitely some basic questions of someone's you know in select their capacity i think she definitely meets those marks you know she's obviously very talented person she's a very accomplished person there's been areas where she's been right about like the invasion of iraq she was opposed to it from the beginning and then you know the other questions that are really central that i want to see her pressed on are rwanda her whole policy towards africa that's really where she launched her career from as an africa specialist. and i would say with regard to the holdings of trans canada and other energy companies she needs to look go though she wants to be a credible candidate i think that that's a totally black or white thing and i hope you know you'll keep pushing on it and

other people keep pushing it because that's very clear there's not much ambiguity there and that was michael brooks producer of the majority report well we're starting to get a clearer picture painted for us of the future of the spy culture in the u.s. and the extent to which it's grown over the last ten years an article over the weekend in the washington post revealed that the pentagon is creating an intelligence agency of its own that could rival the cia in both size and scope the defense intelligence agency is aiming to have as many as one thousand six hundred collectors they're called in positions around the world and according to the agency's director lieutenant general michael flynn this is a major adjustment for national security well it also raises some major questions about the size of our intelligence force in this country considering there are sixteen agencies that deal with intelligence matters to talk more about this i am joined by tony shaffer director for external communications at the center for

advanced defense studies hey there tony what do you make of this i mean why not just use one of the agencies already in place. well the honest answer is dan if anybody reads my book we talk about this defense intelligence agency has had the capability sense nine hundred ninety five a century one to go back and ironically find an interview done by some by. mist are when she was with c.n.n. with general clapper who was then director of the back in one thousand nine hundred five talked about the very same set of issues believe it or not and the whole thing is is that this is more of an expansion of existing capabilities and something new defense intelligence agency in the one hundred ninety five reorganization absorb something called g. tip humint that's general intelligence fund human which basically it was a consolidation so while this is not new this this the idea of going to six hundred collectors is significant and does indicate that there is a serious effort to expand let me. comment on that i think it's insane that they're

saying anything publicly about this this is truly something that should only be talked about a classified level so the fact that this hit the that the new york times is as bad as you know the washington post i mean one of the criticisms out and perhaps someone on the inside felt the same but is that this program that because the d.i.'s falls under the military umbrella and there are different you know congressional notification requirements than the cia so much of what could be done could be done without oversight i mean what do you think about these criticisms. that's valid and let me be very clear this is most of your audience knows i testified to something called able danger which is a pretty nine eleven effort to go after al qaida most your audience managed and i testified for the house armed services committee not the intelligence committees because the operation was focused on military operations which is title ten title ten are those capabilities those laws which govern military operations and that is

separate and distinct from intelligence collection intelligence lection has to do with something called title fifty which is essentially those body of laws which allow for c.i. . to conduct this military it's going to covert operations as well as intel its collection operations and if there were adequate anything done to collect intelligence should be done under title fifty and under specific congressional oversight with that said there is still oversight of title ten but it's done by different committees one of the things we're finding for example about dodgy is that there's a lot of different issues but no one committee you can go to because you have the foreign affairs you have the intelligence the have you have the armed services and that's part of the problem here is that there may be a perception that there may be an attempt to bypass certain oversight by going in and building this with the department of defense versus within the cia yes certainly when we saw general petraeus here on the hill a couple weeks ago those hearings were closed doors but it was he was testifying before several different here in the days so it does seem like you know there are some different channels here let me ask you about another criticism though by

a whole lot of people on capitol hill and that is that this new arrangement and like you said the da is not new but it is a vast expansion but that this new arrangement is getting too generous to the cia i mean the cia according to this article at least will get to sort of approve or deny these missions and will get to use the i am members as support. huge part of friction and i thought this myself inside yes this is been something that goes back well before ninety five this basically the director of cia is also called the director of central intelligence the d.c.i. and i was just meeting with jim woolsey the night former director of central intelligence and jim worked under president clinton as director of central intelligence last director of cia so it's a dual hand sort of thing and because there is a need to decon flicked generally speaking every operation must be coordinated within the director of central intelligence that is basically a common sense thing to do with that said there is inherently friction between cia

and dia and as the article stipulates and i can you know is this is we talk about this but my book operation dark heart everybody to include d.o.d. case officer trained by cia with that said the similarity ends there the d.o.d. missions are completely different often cia will will take things from vi if they like it one of the noble things about able danger which was the pre nine eleven effort is that cia did things to undermine the special operations command efforts to go after bin ladin that was something that i testified to so with that said there's always friction and i don't see it getting any better with the current set of laws or with this expansion because obviously there's going to be issues of who's in charge well that's what i was going to ask you this friction between the d.a. and the cia as we know for years has been there's been friction between the cia and the f.b.i. on matters so i mean you think this is going to sort of make matters worse by having yet another agency sort of not quite but sort of it competing with the cia.

well competition is a tough term d.o.d. have his own missions and those do often get in get in conflict with cia c.i. sees itself and i'll be very very kind of my friends we call him the cling on because they are in star trek or they're you know they're kind of like the cling on their part of the federation but they do their own thing much like you know so they often do their own thing and they aren't necessarily in sync with d.o.d. so we take great exception and again for your audience to understand my book operation dark heart operation dark heart was going to be done without c.i.'s knowledge we were just going to do it and do it do it under under duties authority so again this is not the first time we'll be the last time that there's conflict and frankly as a deal the case officer we have done a number of things to work around them and again partnering with the f.b.i. has been one of those options as well it's interesting when we talk about these two factions i mean this is already been approved by secretary of defense leon panetta as well right former cia director david petraeus let's not forget we and i know that used to be the director of the cia i mean do you think that this fostered sort

of a greater desire to carry over his own tracks so to speak to his new position i don't know i think there's been talk from day get from ninety five of actually consolidating everything into a single service a basic calling of the national clandestine service for obvious reasons because of the gravity of law because of title ten versus title fifty you know he's never signed up that d.o.t. always feels or sings of duty must do on its own let's remember also n.s.a. national security agency is a d.o.t. organization we also work very closely with the n.s.a. as the cia but again it's different and often there's been conflict as i mentioned before where we've worked with the idea of work with. with the other folks relating to see if f.b.i. folks relating to the issues. that are simply titled can't like and so there's always going to be conflict until people can actually work out the differences and find a way to actually cooperate cooperation is never an easy thing to do yeah i think.

it's a good point though certainly surprising that this has been made public i think a lot of those criticisms that it's yet another organization of intelligence officers out there kind of valid but since it is out there we figured we'd talk about it tony shaffer director for external communications at the center for advanced defense studies thanks so much for your brother well now to a story that we continue to cover u.s. sanctions in iran last week the u.s. senate voted to increase sanctions imposing new penalties on any foreign businesses and banks that have ties to iran's ports shipping shipbuilding more energy this would bring policy one step closer to a total trade embargo on iran now these sanctions were added by the senate to the annual defense authorization bill hasn't been voted on yet by the house of representatives nor has it been signed into law by the president but to talk more about these proposed sanctions and u.s. policy in iran overall i was joined earlier by jim mob policy director for the national iranian american council and we first discussed the split between the

white house and the senate on these increased sanctions. well i would i wouldn't call it a clash it was a very quiet confrontation if anything this was a sanctions package that was proposed initially as a total embargo sort of the last step in this same. dance that we've seen over the past couple years and laugh that before they were full exhaustion of the sanctions and what's left but you know potentially a naval blockade to enforce a total embargo that's of course an act of war there's also talk of you know this spring or summer being israel's last point before they actually go in and strike a so-called red line the so-called red line we've heard the red line articulated many times in the past but you know there's indications that this is the most serious of the red lines that have been drawn but the point is that the supporters of the sanctions have articulated this as being sort of a race to the end with iran that we need to escalate our stations towards a full embargo before they can race to become quote unquote nuclear capable which

is very unclear term and so what happened was the you know the supporters of this did not get everything that they wanted they didn't get the total embargo but they still did manage to ratchet up the sanctions this is the third time in just the past calendar year that they've managed to do this and the white house is understandably frustrated by this because we are now in a period where we are supposedly going to enter negotiations and where you know the u.s. election cycle has ended we have a brief period of time before march when the iranian election cycle begins and they're unable to do anything diplomatically and so we have this brief window where we need to have serious talks and there's a sense that congress is interfering in sort of undermining the president's flexibility by passing yet another round of sanctions that are potentially going to upset some of the united states allies in this process yeah and that's what i want to talk to you about because this is not a direct action on iran this is a direct action on anyone who does business with iran so obviously in the long run

who that hurt the most it hurts iran by. what about some of these other countries who would be penalize for doing business with iran i mean what what are you hearing is there a reaction i think there's concern about these measures that every time we've seen this in the past there's been this concern for instance you know these sanctions are really going to hit potentially turkey pretty hard because turkey depends on iran for its gas right now they've worked out some arrangements where they're essentially bartering through the use of gold in order for iran to continue to sell gas to turkey if this gets cut off it's unclear what what turkey can do and so i think my sense is that with the administration would like is for more waivers in these sanctions to give them at the very least some flexibility with our allies to say you know we are actually partners in this we're not you know we're not going into an economic war with you know an example right now of a waiver i think it is you know china obviously does business with iran and the

u.s. has not you know imposed major penalties on china for that right exactly and those were built in because the administration did sort of take on congress last december with central bank sanctions and managed to win some very short term temporary waivers that they could enforce sort of at their discretion the real issue the fundamental issue here though is that the administration doesn't have a waiver to use at the table with wrong per se there's there's a lack of clarity about what iran would have to do in order to get the u.s. to be able to lift the sanctions or suspend them and so there's a lack of confidence i think every time these sanctions get passed that the sanctions are actually going to be used as leverage rather than just sort of step by step incremental approach towards confrontation and jamal when we talk about sanctions it's really interesting because this is sort of seen as a nonviolent alternative to any sort of military violence and it's sort of the

american people as a way to show that work. tough but it doesn't actually physically hurt anyone but that's not really the whole story is that it's not the whole story we're seeing now reports. there's a young iranian kid who died because he couldn't get medicine for hemophilia treatment and we're hearing about these increased shortages of medicine in iran because the sanctions are cutting off those imports so this is having real real effects now this is a problem that the drafters of these new sanctions took into account they acknowledge that they exist but instead of actually taking action to make sure that our sanctions aren't cutting off medical exports to iran and so they said well we're going to demand the president give us a report about who is diverting these medical goods from iranians no that's fantastic if that's what we need to get to the bottom of this but at the end of the day if that report actually comes through you know if it names iranian officials

great let's make sure that's not happening but we do know that the sanctions are going to be our main culprit of this and we're going to have to look in the mirror and say ok now what we what can we do to make sure that we're actually not the ones who are responsible for you know ordinary iranians dying because of lack of access to basic medicine yeah absolutely yes especially when it comes to take young people there let's switch gears a little bit because these sanctions aren't the only sort of new policy there is an article in the wall street journal that talked about the increased use of surveillance drones by the u.s. over iran talk about the impact that that has well we heard a few weeks ago about a drone that was actually shot at by iranian jets this was understandably area for concern we know that the u.s. apparently has escalating these these drone flights and the iranians have complained to the u.s. that these flights are violating iran's territory the u.s.

denies that but we also know that. you know i think it was last year or seven. months ago a spy drone is actually shot down inside of iraq we also there have been reports of real cloak and dagger type stuff going on inside of iran where you've had street signs replaced by cameras and and monitoring devices by the u.s. and its intelligence assets inside of iran so there seems to be a pretty thick blanket of surveillance over iran but the problem here is that i mean for one it really doesn't do a whole lot to bolster confidence or trust between the two countries and two there is a need for more oversight and surveillance but it has to be done in the legal fashion and there is a legal basis with which to do that and that's the international the i.a.e.a. the u.n. nuclear agency and what we should be doing hopefully if we can get these talks started is to work on an end game that involves greater legal inspections by the

way that iran excepts that can give the u.s. and its partners assurance that iran is not moving towards a nuclear weapon and gives iran it's in title meant to domestic enrichment but wasn't this sort of the process before i mean why isn't this something that can be working this is something that could be working if we're actually if we're actually having these negotiations and i think there's a lack of clarity about what is our and goal can we arrive at a point where inspections are robust enough that we can be assured that there isn't a problem here we can actually put this issue to rest certainly lots to consider and some interesting new developments here policy director for the national iranian american council thanks and let's well that's going to do it for us for now but for more on the stories we covered go to youtube dot com slash r.t. america or check out our website r.t. dot com slash usa.